


you'll find the real thing instead (patch up the tapestry that i shred)

by traumatic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Drinking to Cope, Drunken Confessions, Everybody Lives, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, Pining, Requited Unrequited Love, Supernatural Elements, Temporary Character Death, but not this writer, if it's shit blame the writers, which you know never happens so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:20:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28123734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traumatic/pseuds/traumatic
Summary: The only sensations Dean Winchester knows are agony and grief. When the Empty steals Cas away after his one moment of happiness, Dean dies all over again. This time, though, he's not sure he can come back from it.Or where Dean's grief overwhelms him and, this time, there is no one there to save him from himself.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 3
Kudos: 55





	you'll find the real thing instead (patch up the tapestry that i shred)

**Author's Note:**

> i've never written for destiel before, but i needed to get out my feelings somewhere lol. I stopped watching somewhere around season 12, so this is entirely based in 2nd hand knowledge. If there are any errors, assume I did it on purpose? I don't have a beta, so...
> 
> Thanks! Hope you enjoy.
> 
> title from Champagne Problems by Taylor Swift

The only sensations Dean Winchester knows are agony and grief. It’s been this way since he was four, since he ran from that burning house with Sam in his arms, since his mother died a painful and inevitable death. 

He knows that her death was fated, written to cause the end of time millennia in advance, but he wonders if God meant to fate his dad’s death, too. John Winchester died in that fire with Mary, left behind an empty shell of a man who came running from the fire, from the ash and scorn of his wife’s death. 

Sam died when Jess did, but he got to come back, though not entirely. He was Sam still, still Dean’s dumbass little brother, after a while. He was like that, was the old Sam, until the angels forced an apocalypse on them, until Ruby gave him the means to an end with the bitter taste of her demon blood. Sam never really came back from that, not really, but Dean loved him regardless. 

Dean, though? Dean dies all the time. Physically and mentally, Dean has had too many deaths to count. He dies every time someone he loves does, every time an innocent is hurt in his games, and he never really comes back. Dean died with Sam in that ghost town all that time ago, died with his baby brother, and he continues to die every time after that. 

Castiel is the one exception to Dean’s death rule. He got to come back, over and over, and he is always the same. Always Cas. When Raphael blew him to bits, he came back. When Lucifer atomized him, he got to come back. When he absorbed Purgatory and the Leviathan eviscerated him, he got to come back. 

Whenever Cas got to live again, all those times, he did the one thing Dean thought no one was capable of: he got to stay himself, got to come back as _himself._

It’s one of the things that Dean admires most about him. It’s a defining characteristic of someone so good at heart, so uncorrupted, that even death cannot truly destroy him. 

As Dean’s standing there in front of him, in front of his tear-filled eyes, Dean thinks this. Thinks of his best friend, his confidant, the thorn in his side. Thinks of all the times Cas should’ve died and stayed dead, but didn’t. Thinks of the first time his goddamn angel died, of the times Cas disappeared and would only reappear for him no matter how hard Sam prayed. 

Their profound bond. 

“I know how you see yourself, Dean,” Cas says and Dean wants to run. 

He wants to flee, because he hates feeling like this. Hates the taste desperation leaves on his tongue. He hates the way Cas knows the truth of what Dean is inside. Evil and twisted and corrupt. Knows and denies it. 

Cas knows how hard Dean tries to hide the truth of his dark and damned soul and Dean wishes he didn’t. Wishes Cas could go back to the beginning, back to Heaven, back to the safety of his own ignorance. 

“You’re the most caring man on Earth,” Cas says and the tears in his eyes are too much for Dean. 

Too much pain in too little time. Perhaps this will be the death that finally does Dean in. The one that finally sticks. 

Dean doesn’t know where Cas is going with this monologue, with the pain in his voice, the juxtaposed relief on his face. Suddenly he’s smiling, like they’re not both going to be absorbed by death, by nothingness, by Billie's blade. 

“Because you cared, I cared. I  _ cared _ about you. I cared about Sam. I cared about Jack.” 

There’s something in the way Cas says cared that hits home somewhere deep in Dean’s chest. Something almost like agony, something stronger than grief. 

“Why does this sound like a goodbye?” Dean asks gruffly, because the emotion in his chest, the death on his tongue, it’s all too much. 

Dean is used to pain. He’s used to grief. This is something entirely new, something consuming and suffocating, something that makes his blood pound with fear and adrenaline. 

The door is creaking behind him, shaking on its hinges, the warding flashing red, but Cas just goes on, still smiling that tragic and beautiful smile. Still looking like the man Dean met in that barn, still wearing that damn coat, still looking at him with undeserved awe and understanding. 

Cas. He’s still just Cas, still just as beautiful and terrifying as he was the day Dean and Bobby summoned him. 

“Because it is,” Cas says plainly. “I love you.” 

And there it is. That’s what causes the feeling. Reciprocation on the edge of death, at the brink of nothingness. 

Anger floods Dean’s chest despite the situation they’re in. Anger at Cas’ cowardice, at his own inferiority. At the world for being so shitty all the fucking time. 

Doesn’t anyone ever get a fucking break from all the flames and bombs and death? Doesn't anyone deserve a respite? Some fucking relief?

“Don’t do this, Cas,” Dean says and he blinks and blinks and blinks. _“Cas!”_

He can’t believe this is happening. Can’t believe this is real life and not a dream. 

A tear slips down Cas’ cheek and Dean breaks. He can’t do this. He can’t! He can't leave Dean here and die for him again. 

“Goodbye, Dean,” he says softly, reaching out to touch his shoulder, to embrace him, maybe. 

Dean prepares himself, too, prepares for Cas’ last touch, for the feel of him pressed against his chest, but it doesn’t come. 

With one hand, with one last push, he shoves Dean away, sending him slamming into the wall as the door breaks open, the warding broken, Cas’ death imminent. 

Black ooze drips to the floor, eternal and entropic, as everlasting as death itself, creeps into the room from the walls, as Billie stands in the doorway, scythe in hand. 

Dean looks over at Cas, laying sideways on the ground, shoulder aching, as Cas smiles a final goodbye grin. Dean wants to throw himself at him, wants to shake him, squeeze him, punch him, fucking anything but sit there and let him be absorbed into nothingness. 

But he can’t do anything but let Cas die and never come back. From this death, Castiel will _never_ get to come back. 

“No,” he whispers as the ooze shoots out and wraps itself around Cas. _“No.”_

Dean does nothing for a long moment, doesn’t even notice as Billie is taken by the ooze, because his chest hurts so bad he thinks he might actually be dying. 

His lifetime of agony and grief did nothing to prepare him for this feeling. It’s like being trapped on a rocky seashore as waves bash his body into the sharp rocks, wounding him over and over and over. Like being Prometheus on that rock as eagles tear at his insides day after day. Like being Atlas crushed by the weight of the world with no reprieve, no respite. 

Like waking up and realizing the only person who didn’t have to love you, but did is now dead. 

“Fuck,” he shouts and finally he cries, tears filling his eyes as the realization dawns on him. _“Fuck!”_

When he looks down, he can see Cas’ handprint, still pressed into the fabric of his shirt. In the same place he’d once gripped Dean tight and raised him from perdition, he had pushed him, protecting him from persecution one final time. 

He slips off the shirt, stares at his smudged fingerprints, at the shape of his thin fingers, and he weeps, because what else can he do? 

His best friend is dead. His best friend sacrificed himself for Dean. 

What a pathetic waste of his life. 

* * *

Things turn out alright for the rest of the world somehow. 

Somehow, Dean makes it out of that room, out of the bunker, but he can’t remember deciding to do it. It’s like his body is on autopilot, like someone else has taken his suit for a walk, like fixing it had been in the cards all along. 

After the death of God, Dean does what he’s always done. Hunted things, saved people, a routine he’s used to. He falls into it head first, buries himself in his work so he doesn’t have to deal with this crushing grief, with the knowledge that he’ll never see Cas again. 

Sam knows something is wrong with him, knows he’s not-dealing with something he should be dealing with, but he doesn’t ask. What would he say if he did, though? 

Dean physically can’t think about it. Can’t think of how badly he wronged an innocent soul, how tragically Cas was hurt by Dean’s existence. 

Dean destroys everything he touches and Cas is just another example of why no one should ever get close to him. All Dean does is wreck and ruin. Even Sam has been affected by Dean's toxic touch, by his criminal hand. 

Dean doesn’t deserve happiness, doesn’t deserve his best friend, not after he stood there as Cas died and said nothing in return. Why didn’t he say _anything_ in return? 

He can’t do it. He just. He can’t. 

He sits at a bar, who fucking knows where, and drinks. He drinks beyond coherence, beyond safety, because he can’t think about Cas for one more second or he’ll explode. He sits at the bar and takes shot after shot, glass after glass. Somewhere before he loses his clarity entirely, a brunette woman tries to give him an appraising look, but he’s so despondent he can’t even meet her gaze. 

Not after Cas. Never again, probably. 

The bartender cuts him off after a while, when he starts slipping out of his seat, so he gets angry. Why can’t Dean just fucking drink his problems away like everyone else? Why do his problems always have to follow him no matter how far he goes?

He smashes his glass on the floor as he storms out, stumbling and tripping until he’s outside and the freezing air is biting at his exposed skin. His jacket must still be hanging on the back of his chair inside, but he doesn’t fucking care. 

Somehow he makes it back to the hotel room he and Sam are sharing, stumbles past the car parked outside and into the room, collapsing back on his bed. 

Sam’s sitting at the table, laptop out, reading something boring probably. 

Dean just needs to sleep. At least when he sleeps, he can dream of an alternate world, a time where Dean had time, where Cas hadn’t waited until the last possible second, where Dean’s fantasies can exist without pain and angst and all-consuming grief. 

“Dude,” Sam says, looking worried, “are you alright?” 

“No,” Dean answers drunkenly. “I’m _def-_ definitely not all fucking right.”

“You’re starting to worry me, Dean. What’s going on with you?” Sam sits up, but doesn’t approach. 

Wise thing to do, since Dean is contemplating hitting something. The wall, the door, himself, the lamp, whatever will make the pain stop, the thoughts, the ache. 

He remembers that time Cas almost beat him to death, the time Naomi had control over his head, and he wishes Cas had just fucking done it. Had stabbed him through the throat and finished him, so no one else would have had to suffer. 

“Dean?”

Dean doesn’t even know how to start, how to tell Sam that Cas is gone and it’s all his fault, how Cas was in love with him, too, how he went to nothingness thinking Dean didn’t love him back, how he took the death that Dean deserved. Again. 

“I fucked up,” Dean says, blurting it out. “I fucked up like I always do.” 

“What did you fuck up?” 

“Cas. I fucking...I fucking...I can’t believe he did that to me! _For_ me. Can’t believe I was...his happiness. Can’t believe the coward waited to tell me...and that I...”

“Tell you what?” Sam furrows his brows and Dean is starting to feel sick. 

He thinks he’s going to throw up. Perhaps he’ll even die. 

“He _loved_ me,” Dean says brokenly, his voice fracturing into millions of shards of glass. “He loved me and I didn’t get to tell him I loved him back before the Empty swallowed him up like a fucking sinkhole.” 

“Oh, Dean,” Sam says softly, like he knew Dean was going to say that. “I’m so sorry.” 

“Fuck,” Dean says again, beyond drunk. “It just...it hurts, Sammy.” 

Sam nods, lifts an eyebrow, and asks, unhelpfully, “How long have you…?” 

Dean is just awake enough to scowl at him and snap, “What the fuck does it matter?” 

Because why does it? Dean's known for a long time that the bond he and Cas share is nothing like any relationship Dean has had before. He's known Cas was his family, his friend, his ally. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Sam backtracks. “Do you want to be alone?” 

Dean doesn’t know what he fucking wants. He has no idea. 

Nothing will make him feel better, so what’s the point in trying? He can’t even get drunk anymore to run from his problems. He clenches his fists tight to avoid punching something. 

“I’ll be back in a couple hours, alright?” Sam says gently, already pulling on his coat. “Try and, like, pray to him, dude. Maybe that’ll help.” 

And then he’s gone and Dean is alone and the world is dead and Cas is dead and nothing matters. 

After a while, Dean lays back on his bed and starts to talk. Maybe it’s to Cas or maybe he’s just finally losing his mind. It doesn't make him feel any better either way, though. 

“Castiel,” Dean says gruffly, drunkenly, “you’re a fucking _coward_ for doing that to me. I know you’re brave...or you used to be, but that was something only a coward does. Running away doesn’t solve your fucking...fucking problems, you feathery idiot. How do you just...just drop that on me and expect me to live with it? Expect me to fucking go on living while you’re dead and it’s all my fault?” 

Dean stops for a moment to decide if he’s going to throw up or not, but the feeling passes. Acid reflux and whatnot. 

“Cas, I...I...you know I’m a Winchester, right? And we’ve got a shit track record with emotions. My dad was repressed, I was repressed, and if I ever have kids, they’ll probably be repressed to. It’s in our fucking genes to bury our emotions deep down. But there’s this feeling in my chest...this feeling that I can’t shake. I don’t even have a name for it, Cas, because I’ve never experienced it before...and it hurts. It hurts so bad. 

“You caused that. You did this to me. You should’ve let the fucking Empty take me instead, because I am useless to this Godless, forsaken world without...without you here. What good could I possibly be like this? So you died for nothing. I wish...I wish I could go back. Go back to the first time I met you, to the you that was alive and so loyal and brave. You were so...so brilliant...so beautiful...so terrifying. I fucking hated you at the beginning and then we grew together. Like...like a tapestry or something...we wove ourselves together...got close. You were my brother, Cas, and I loved you. But it wasn’t enough...I can see that now. 

“It wasn’t enough for _you_ and it wasn’t enough for me. _Fuck!”_

He stands up and stumbles for the bottle on the table to bury the pain. Cheap whiskey, something he grabbed a while back for emergencies. He takes a long sip, unable to bear it anymore. 

It burns down his throat, but doesn't relieve any pressure. If anything, he only feels worse. 

“And the worst part is I fucking miss you, you cowardly piece of shit!” Dean shouts, completely incoherent. 

He is so drunk. He has never been this drunk before. The bottle is empty now, though, so he smashes it against the wall, slicing his palm from wrist to fingertips. He can’t feel it, though, because the pain, the grief, the mourning, they’re all consuming. 

They’re all he can feel. Not even physical pain works as a distraction anymore. 

In complete despondency, he throws himself down onto his bed and kicks out at the lamp to turn it off. It shatters against the ground, tugging the cord from the wall, and drenching Dean in darkness. 

Now, he’s like Cas, shrouded in black, in nothingness, feeling nothing but loss. Embracing his grief like an icy hug from death itself. 

Blood drips down his hands as he presses them against his chest to try and stop the ache, but it doesn’t work. He feels like crying, but he doesn’t. He can’t. 

What if Sam comes back and sees? 

So he lays there in the dark and waits. Waits to see a face he’ll never see again. Until he falls asleep and dreams of a man with shiny silver wings. Of flying away with him into the sky. 

* * *

Dean wakes, not to a splitting headache, but to the sound of his car starting up outside. Sam must’ve come back and decided to leave again, taking Dean’s car without asking. Bastard. 

Dean gets up and heads to the bathroom, stumbling blindly because the sun is so bright. He brushes his teeth and stares at himself in the mirror, at the blood spotting the front of his shirt. Blood? 

He looks down and sees his palms, which had been cut and bleeding, are fine. Perfect. Flawless. 

He runs out of the bathroom immediately, afraid of believing in the possibility, afraid of what could be. What else could heal his hands so perfectly, could fix his hangover? 

When he looks around, he sees him. Messy black hair, spotless coat, crooked tie. Sitting in the chair where Sam sat yesterday is Castiel, angel of the Lord. 

Dean says nothing, because he has no words. No words at all. 

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says like no time has passed at all. 

Like he hasn’t been locked in the Empty for almost a year and left Dean in shambles. Dean’s blood starts to boil as anger flushes his face. 

“You fucking coward!” Dean shouts, rushing at him. 

He can’t believe the piece of shit came back and all he could fucking say is _Hello, Dean._ Rage brings Dean back to his senses, back to feeling, and it momentarily covers the grief in his chest. 

Dean pushes him up against the wall, knocking the chair and table over, holding him by the lapels of his jacket, fists clenched so tight they ache. Cas lets him, only makes a small noise of complaint as his body hits the wall. 

His face is so close, so the same, that Dean has to take a deep, shaking breath to avoid doing something he’ll regret. 

“You disappear into nothingness and all you have to say to me is _Hello Dean?”_ Dean’s voice is scary calm. “How long have you been back?” 

“6 months,” Cas says flatly, avoiding meeting Dean's eyes. 

“Six months? _Six months?”_ Dean presses against him harder, his fury blinding him. “You fucking asshole! You let me grieve you the entire fucking time without even saying anything? I thought we were friends, Cas. I thought we were family!” 

“I think so, too...But I know...I know my feelings may have _complicated_ that relationship...and I did not want to make you feel obligated to...to...to put me down easy.” 

“So you let me mourn and drink my pain away for six months? Let me waste away with guilt?” 

“Yes.” 

Dean rears back a little and slams Cas against the wall again. He could scream every horrible name in the book at him, but it would not dissolve his rage. It would not end his pain. 

Cas is back. He’s alive. He’s a _coward,_ but he’s alive. 

Dean gets close to his face, a sneer on his lips, and says, “I can’t _believe_ you.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Yeah, well, so am I.” Dean's voice is sharp, unrepentant. 

“Why are you sorry?”

This is something Dean had never thought about. Trying to articulate his feelings, these things he’s pushed down and down and down, into words is impossible. What would he even say? 

Fuck, Dean is such a mess. 

“Because...I didn’t say anything back.” 

That’s the best he can do. His anger is waning and his anxiety is rising and everything is coming to an end. 

Dean usually has a level head, a calm one, but he cannot think of one thing to say. Not in the face of this, in the face of an angel he’s pined over for months, of the man he’s grieved, of the life he could’ve had. 

In Cas’ face, Dean can see him. Dean can see who Cas used to be and still is. Can see that despite the Empty, Cas gets to be himself again. He’s defied everything Dean knows about life and pain and grief and come back the same man he went in. 

Brave and beautiful and terrifying. 

Dean wants so suddenly to be the man _he_ used to be, to be the brave and fearless Dean Winchester, to be the man who hadn't yet died and maybe might have deserved someone’s love, but he isn’t. He never will be. 

“What would you have said?” 

Dean’s never been good with words. He likes references and quotes, because they’re borrowed. They’re other people’s emotions, compressed into phrases, useful to a point, but never personal. 

He’s always kept that barrier, used it as a shield on occasion, but he can’t hide anymore. Not when Cas is back and the Earth is spinning again and he has a chance. A chance to not be miserable for the rest of his life, to repress his feelings for this beautiful angel in front of him. 

“This.” 

And then he pulls Cas by his lapels and kisses him. He kisses him like he’s kissed no one before. 

He may not be the man he used to be, but Cas is still the same. If Cas thinks Dean is worth loving, maybe he should give it a try. 

“I’m so glad you’re back,” Dean says and Cas, Cas smiles. 

When Cas kisses him, Dean forgets the pain, the grief, the anxiety, and he just lets go. He holds Cas like he’s made of glass, fragile and breakable and delicate, because he is. 

**Author's Note:**

> how was it? let me know!
> 
> (p.s. i have no idea who jack is, so i didn't really write any of those parts??? soz)


End file.
